Netanyahu Defends Israeli Espionage Services Amid Spy Scandal

By Calev Ben-David -
Feb 17, 2013

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his first public comment on a spy affair involving
the alleged prison suicide of an Israeli-Australian Mossad
agent, defended his country’s intelligence services.

“Israel’s security and intelligence forces operate under
the complete supervision of legal authorities which are
completely independent,” Netanyahu said today at a weekly
Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

An Australia Broadcasting Corp. report last week alleged
that an Australian citizen living in Israel and working for the
Mossad intelligence agency had hanged himself after being
imprisoned in 2010. ABC said its probe linked a man named Ben
Zygier, also known as Ben Alon, to a figure dubbed “Prisoner
X” described in a 2010 report by the Ynet news website as being
held under tight security in Israel’s Ayalon prison.

Following the ABC report, top editors of Israeli media
outlets were called into Netanyahu’s office and told that all
reports relating to the story were subject to security
censorship. An Israeli court later allowed a partial lifting of
the gag order, and confirmed some of the facts in the ABC
report.

“The Prison Service detained a prisoner who held both
Israeli and foreign citizenship. For security reasons, the
prisoner was held under an alias,” the Justice Ministry said in
an e-mailed statement on Feb. 13. “The prisoner was found dead
in his cell approximately two years ago.”

Netanyahu said that while Israeli preserved democratic
rights and freedom of expression as well as any country, it also
had to “safeguard the orderly operations of our security arms.
Therefore I request from all of you, let the security forces
continue to work quietly,” he said.

The affair has strained relations between Israel and
Australia, which was told about Zygier’s arrest 10 months before
he was found hanged in his cell, Foreign Minister Bob Carr said
last week. On Dec. 16, 2010, Australia was informed through
“intelligence channels” that Zygier had died the previous day,
Carr said.

The Brisbane Times reported that unidentified Australian
security officials suspect that prior to his arrest, Zygier may
have been about to expose Israeli use of Australian passports
for espionage purposes. The officials said their government was
informed of his arrest just after Dubai police announced that
Australian passports were used by three of the suspects in the
alleged Mossad killing a month earlier of Hamas operative
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

In May, 2010, Australia expelled an Israeli diplomat to
protest what it said was the “involvement of state
intelligence” in fake passports linked to the killing of
Mabhouh. Israel has never said whether it was involved in the
assassination.